


Like A Shadow

by UlternateFreak



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Boys In Love, Canon Related, Canon Rewrite, Canon Universe, F/M, Falling In Love, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Secret Crush, Teen Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 11:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20796014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UlternateFreak/pseuds/UlternateFreak
Summary: Carlos supposed - once before - it all coincidental - Ben just on the cusp of being in the right place at the right time. Taking, in every case, a necessary step forward to properly ground him back into place."How did you find me this time?""I saw you-"...A Benlos tale following the events of Descendants, and well into Descendants 2.





	Like A Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I was left quite unsatisfied with Descendants 3 - which, mostly seemed to tackle spectacle rather than any semblance of actual story.   
To which I uttered 'Benlos' - and reflected back onto the previous two films as inspiration for writing this fic here. Sadly, the passing of Cameron Boyce has left this feeling a tad melancholy - though Carlos De Vil, as a character, will live on in story between the franchise and the countless tales woven by the fandom.   
That, I am positively sure of.  
As mentioned in the summary, this story will follow the canon of the first two films - mostly, with only slight deviations in plot.

Its strange to think of a breathing - living - organism - person - as a shadow.  
Yet the more Carlos seemed to think it, the more it simply became true.  
For every time he turned about - be it under scrutiny of the coach, or being hounded by a dog - or even the occasional near trip up in the hall - Ben had always been just out of reach behind him. Taking, in every case, a necessary step forward to properly ground him back into place with a firm hand placed neatly upon the narrow expanse of his shoulders.  
  
"I'll work with him, coach-"  
  
"Good boy-"  
  
"The floors can be tricky-"  
  
And he'd smile - charming and brilliant - which always stirred some sort of deep aneurysm within Carlos's own body. A sort of inward punch that left him breathless each time.  
He supposed - once before - it all coincidental - Ben just on the cusp of being in the right place at the right time.  
  
"Always-"  
  
Then, however, came the night of the coronation - in which Carlos had blatantly made a fool of himself, and had wandered off from the girl in the periwinkle dress.  
She had tried to hold his hand - which of course had, in turn, forced the other to pry it away as if burnt by the touch. And really - truly - it hadn't a thing to do with her - but rather, the idea of allowing some other person to possibly have his hand to themselves. The only other living thing to have ever taken hold of his arm in such a way had been his mother, after all. And never had it been in such positive light.  
  
"You've burnt another one of my coats, boy-!"

  
"Are you alright-?"  
  
Ben had immediately found him by the waters edge - seconds - after having just settled down, his coat tails crumpled beneath him.  
  
"I saw what happened-"  
"You did?"  
  
It was odd to say the least - for Ben had been overhead the lot of them, sure - but distinctly away and separated with Mal by his side.  
And Carlos - but a mere face in a crowd. Below.  
  
"Of course."  
"Well, I'm fine...just got tired is all."  
"No - you ran away. You were scared - I saw-"  
"How-? Why? You always seem to be the only one who ever does."  
  
"That can't be true."  
"Well, it is. So - you can go now, Ben. I'm fine."  
  
It's different after that - weeks on end, with Ben not as close as before - but still within reach should he be needed.

Sure, it takes a much longer stride to come now - but, hes there. The imminent shadow still draped against the wall - caught only if gone looking by the boy with eyes on the pavement.  
And still - it - he - smiles - once Carlos does, in fact, give in to looking - alighting that inner blaze deep within his chest.  
  
By two months end, they're back to much similar, and oddly bearable, distance - Carlos not exactly knowing when the space had closed, but realizing it as simple fact upon thought one day.  
For Ben is besides him when Chad Charming barks at him - sending a sharp chill down his spine despite the countless efforts of overcoming such childish fear. 'Cause the dog thing, is anything but true - and yet, well - as Fairy Godmother had once lectured - "Auradon hadn't been built in a day."  
  
"Hey - lay off him, Chad-!"  
"Chill, it was a joke-"  
"Well, it wasn't funny-"  
  
Ben sticks to his side the remainder of that day, talking and laughing - and simply being without trying despite the duties Carlos is sure he ought to have - has.  
And by the following afternoon, it stands the same - by next week, still. And though physically closer - and much more apparent - Ben still feels like a shadow to him rather than anything else.  
Carlos simply doesn't have to turn, or wait, too far, or too long, to see it.  
  
"Why are you crying?"  
  
He is besides himself when the voice breaks him forth from his thoughts. And hearing that voice, honestly, hurts and makes him whimper harder, 'cause he should have expected Ben to see him leave the library, in spite of the odds - and yet, he had foolishly thought he could be alone by venturing off and into the woods.  
  
"How did you find me this time?"  
"I saw you-"  
"You weren't even in the library-"  
"And that matters how-?"  
  
It's stupid. Though the tears roll the same - streaming down flushed cheeks - and dripping off the very edge of his face.  
  
Ben doesn't say a thing - for a moment, after. Simply stands and watches him with a deep and penetrated look.  
  
He relents.  
  
"Its her birthday today."  
  
Silence.  
  
"And... I don't really know. I was trying to read, but the text just kept turning into spots. And the leather binding was red..."  
  
He cries, after, for twenty or so minutes, mostly silent sobs that muffle out into nothings against rich navy blue cotton. But if Ben minds, he doesn't show it - instead, offering his own, however sweet, nothings as his fingers caress against white tufts of hair.  
  
"Its okay to miss her."  
"No, it's not."  
  
But he does anyway.  
  
"She was your mother-"  
"She was a monster."  
  
Ben, Carlos knows, can't ever begin to imagine life on the Isle in its truest sense. But neither does he try - or pretend to, and once Carlos manages to stomach the dread of acting a fool - because surely that's what it had been - he raises - eyes scarred red, but nearly dry - and specifically directed at a tree stump and not at the other.  
  
"Thanks. For...you know-"  
"Always."  
  
When his own birthday rolls around, months after, but not so far as to be removed from memory - he is sad. Just as then. Only, not so quite as intense. Nor does he feel a hollow ache that threatens to consume him and leave him a ridden mess.  
Perhaps, in truth, it lays in the fact that his birthday had hardly ever been celebrated. By Evie, Mal, and Jay - yes, but only recently within the short span of years that they've come to grow alongside each other.  
Before - never - not withstanding a simple cackle and a chore list marked with a special added message of "clean the attic" - which she only ever asked of him once a year.  
  
Course, upon wakening this particular day - on this particular year - hes floored after having rounded out the corner of his dorm room. Stopped by Ben who holds yet another beaming and brilliant smile.  
  
"Happy Birthday, Carlos."  
  
Hes given three gifts in the span of seconds. First, a banner that crudely hangs over the hallway where they stand, written in a hurried scrawl. Second, an actual voiced sentiment over said birthday. And thirdly - lastly, a neatly wrapped parcel that holds not only a 3-D printer, but also a stunning checkered watch that looks to cost more than his actual life put together.  
  
"You didn't have to-"  
"I wanted to."  
  
The printer doesn't stay in pristine - as purchased condition - for long. Not with the way in which Carlos reconfigured it with spare parts that he finds about town.  
On a few of these outings, the shadow follows - offering arms to carry, and transportation for anything that proves too daunting for the measly wagon that Carlos pulls down the boulevard.  
Within a months time, the machine is towering in his dorm - sleek after being painted a striking silver white with a blue core that may or may not remind him of a certain King.  
  
"You have a gift-"  
"Its more of a knack-"  
"A gift. Don't belittle it. Alright?"  
"Alright."  
  
When Mal's hair conspicuously begins to grow lighter - adjusting in light as the days grow longer - Carlos's own grows shaggier, though he straightens the curls as best as he can.  
Really, he knows, he should cut it - but the fingers that dance about the strands from time to time convince him not to.  
  
"At least let me do something with it-"  
  
Evie is understanding - though isn't in the know about the why, but accepts and offers the best advice in grooming.  
One night, set during their bi-monthly sit down - where, no matter what is occurring, the lot of them come together to watch a movie - she stylizes his hair into what Carlos deems a shrub. It's almost its natural state - set for the small amount of maintenance Evie works into the sides to keep it a particular shape - that, actually, looks quite attractive atop his head.  
  
"You're pretty, Carlos. Hair just accentuates that."  
  
When said movie is playing - the war - in which sides are taken, treaties are broken - and friendships are tested due to choice - now long forgotten, Carlos is sitting upright and against the beds frame. Evie laying across his legs - and Jay by her hip.  
Ben and Mal are atop the bed - which is expected. However, the hands that find his hair aren't - and Carlos nearly startles before familiarity sets in with cool and slender fingers matched against light puffs of air.  
  
The shadow is closer than he thought - and breathing outwardly in small delicate, but seemingly appreciative, laughs.  
  
"I've missed your curly hair."  
  
Part of him knows that Mal must be able to see the hands - though not his face - from her spot. And yet she doesn't utter a word, so Carlos simply sighs, and returns to the film despite the, also quite familiar, rupture of pressure raising within his throat.  
  
"Mal - please - here - everyone would like to know - just what sets you apart from the other maidens of the Kingdom? Any thoughts on the future plans of the United States of Auradon-?"  
  
He watches curtly from the window above - looking down at the courtyard that seems to shrink besides Mal as she ventures off into an unseen world.  
And, well, he doesn't exactly blame her - not with the amount of cameras crowding about her in the hordes and the ever seeming torment of constantly being watched by the media.  
  
He'd hide too.  
  
"Are you alright?"  
  
It's essentially odd. Coming to another's aid and startling them from behind. Much like his shadow \- or not, 'cause Ben isn't exactly his - nor has he been casted behind him for quite some time now.  
King-ly duties and all.  
  
"I'm fine."  
"But you're not. Are you?"  
  
She regards him coldly - trying to muster up some hidden self - a former self - from days now almost forgotten. Or trying to be. Surely, they aren't - they can't ever be. And her look proves that. Because though heat still swells, her eyes read with a sad and heartbreaking song.  
  
Its simply desperate and pathetically trying.  
  
"I miss it, too. Believe it or not. The Isle."  
"You do?"  
"Its everywhere. I see her everywhere. I see everything from before everywhere. No matter how much time passes."  
  
The crowd of cameras outside slowly dwindles - though its apparent that some will wait to see if Mal will make an appearance once more.  
  
Carlos smiles.  
  
"There was a moment though, where I almost forgot - somewhere between Dude and the junkyard but..."  
"Ben got busy."  
  
He doesn't inquire the response - seeing the truth written as clear as day upon her face.  
And perhaps hes always held that particular notion of understanding between him and his female friends. He understood them, in a way, after all - and felt vaguely similar to how they normally did. Even if words weren't granted, and were, instead, shut away from the likes of him.  
  
"It's all fake, you know - this, all of it. This dress - this hair. Sometimes I think the Isle might be home after all."  
"But it isn't. It's just familiar. Less scary. And it wont solve anything."  
  
Her eyes shimmer emerald as she nods against his words, looking away and out at some other distant world again.  
  
"It might."  
  
The day - really noon - in which his talk with Mal led to, proved an odd array of role reversals. For after Mal - hours now passed of course - Carlos had turned down the hall to find none other than Benjamin Florian standing just outside of his, and Jay's, own room - looking perplexed, but oddly nowhere close to where he was physically standing.  
Yet the tears, still etched into his skin, told a much more telling tale than any look he was masking towards the door.  
  
"Ben, why are you crying?"  
  
He startles - eyes rounding out before falling to Carlos who still stood across from him.  
  
"I didn't know where else to go. I - Mal - we broke up. And..."  
  
His feet had carried him here - there.  
  
So Carlos ushers him in - and levels him a seat at his bedside.  
And though unsure at first, he sits besides him - tentatively, with a hand against his shoulder.  
  
"She was unhappy, I knew that. At least - I feel as if I did, and yet..."  
"You didn't want to see it."  
"Does that make me a terrible person? For ignoring it?"  
"No. You could never be a terrible person, Ben. You just wanted to believe that she was happy with you. It's what you do."  
  
"What I do?"  
"You seek to make the miserable happy."  
  
It makes sense, he reasons - finding calm in the way Ben smiles at the words. His words.  
Small and barely intact - but direct and willingly given.  
  
"...it took me longer to find you this time."  
"Well, I wasn't the one upset."  
  
And when they lay - side by side - Carlos on the cusp of feeling that gnawing tug from before - a connection bridges between them. It clasps and pulls the shadow back into mind, and into existence.  
  
"Its been a while since we've talked-"  
"I know."  
"I'm sorry."  
"You were busy."  
"And I think that's the problem."  
"For you and Mal?"  
"For you and I."  
  
The serenity of the moment breaks once the door is nearly torn off its hinges.  
Evie, in it's wake, fluttering in with piercing heels and a flurry of spiraled blues.  
  
"What's wrong-?"  
"Mal. She's gone back to the Isle."  
  
It isn't terribly easy to sneak off the beaches of Auradon State - nor is it entirely impossible. Really, it's more of an inconvenient chore - with an added theft of a limo, but its managed - and the group finds themselves back upon the Isle of the Lost before evening.  
  
"Watch your step-"  
  
Ben is amazed and appalled at the sights. Keening round, but held back - between Jay and Evie, and besides Carlos, who idly watches the King as they march deeper into the heart of their once prison.  
Its mainly admiration over Evie's quick handy work, that Ben wears proudly and without effort. But - oddly enough, he looks, well - good, in Carlos's own opinion. Good in looking 'bad', that is.  
  
"Ben. Keep your head down-"  
"Like this?"  
"No - not like Quasimodo-"  
  
He slaps a cake of mud across his face - chuckling softly against the others muted disgust.  
  
"Your pretty face is a dead give away-"  
  
Ben stops - and simply stares at him.

"Pretty-?'  
"Princely - is what I meant."  
  
  
Despite the 'mask' - Ben is recognized easily enough.  
  
And when Uma arrives - really, when they've taken step into Urusla's fish and chips shack - Carlos finds himself falling back into his younger self.  
In awe, and admiration, and fear, for the girl who by now has grown into her looks.  
As for the goons - well, they're as every bit of impolite and rough as ever - with Harry still looking to Carlos like a predator.  
A shiver, reminiscent - fleeting - but there the same raises as the pirate catches his eye, twirling his hook with a gleeful and calculated look. Reminding Carlos of the way in which he use to tease it along his backside.  
  
"I've always had a fondness for pretty little things."  
  
When Mal stalks up to the Sea Witch - her hair now a magenta violet - she's relatively cool and collected. And really, the Isle look suits her better than any pompish princess dress ever could.  
  
"Where is he, Uma?"  
"Mal. Finally. Here - I saved you a seat-"  
"Where is he?"  
"Why, whoever do you mean?"  
"You know who."  
  
They bring Ben out in chains minutes after the exchange - bound and gagged, but seemingly unharmed.  
  
"I'll gladly return him. By my shell, I promise. But first - bring me the Fairy Godmothers wand-"  
"And I'll promise, not to lay a single hand - or hook - on the top of his majesties crown until you return."  
  
Carlos doesn't exactly like the way in which Hook seems to cradle Ben's face, his twisted fingers locking onto fair skin that scorches pink under his touch.  
  
And from the looks of it, neither does Mal.  
  
"We have to save him-"  
"And we will. But we cant just give her the wand, Carlos."  
"We need a decoy - a fake-"  
  
"What do you reckon?"  
"Do you remember that printer I built last semester?"  
  
The plan goes about as well as any other plan they've ever set into play. Meaning - it goes astray rather quickly - with an impromptu sword fight that offers only a small semblance of an escape at the last possible second.  
  
When Carlos is given Ben - a strong shove that Mal ushers forward to place him into the limo - hes riled and heated - mainly from the fight, but also from the bounds still holding his arms behind his back. Carlos isn't any better - though his hands come to sit against the other boys hips as he - squirms - and grounds - into his lap.  
  
"Let me-"  
  
The bonds are tight - Pirate bound - and Carlos stalls to undo them due to the small blotch of red skin just behind Ben's left ear.  
  
"D-don't ask. Just untie me. Please."  
  
He nods, and bucks up in order to reach around his torso - and if Ben blushes, his ass flush to the upward thrust, it's only due to the fight and flight instincts still at war within him.  
Carlos, all the while, bites back - an essence of arousal being tamed, and silenced, as he pulls his lips together tightly.  
His hands finally undo the binds just as Evie and Jay jump into the backseat - essentially grounding Ben's hips back into Carlos's lap.  
  
"Mal - hurry-!"  
  
The Royal Cotillion - 'cause right, of course - that was certainly a thing all along - comes at a terrible time, all things considered.  
They're dressed, of course, in grand high fashion - thanks to Evie - but are too stunted and strained to be of any true jubilee merit.  
Its remarkable - really - how no one is none the wiser of Ben's previous absence - nor the near downfall of an entire Kingdom just a mere hour before.  
  
Evie, who accompanies Doug, is propped up against the punch table, Jay on the arm of some lass - trying to will along to a song, and Carlos and Mal taking hand in each other, masking as a small inkling of a couple by the ship's railing.  
Naturally, speculation arises at the absence of Mal alongside Ben's arm - who, oddly enough, has yet to give face for the night.  
  
"So, you and Ben-?"  
"No. Nothings changed. But you already knew that. Didn't you?"  
"Not in so many words."  
"Right. So..."  
"So?"  
"So go and find Ben - and take some initiative here, Carlos."  
  
As before, the need to ask a follow up isn't deemed entirely necessary - though Carlos doesn't budge the slightest at the words, and instead, offers Mal a look.  
  
"What about you?"  
"What about me? I'll find my story. It's out there - somewhere, I'm sure of it. And you were right, by the way. Running doesn't help. So take your own advice and stop."  
"I'm not running-"  
"Please. You'd hide from your own shadow."  
  
Carlos laughs - an obnoxious sort of squawk that causes a few turns. To which Mal openly smirks at - with an out raised finger to those still giving a nasty look.  
  
"And what of the eyes?"  
"You're better at not being what everyone expects. In the best of ways. And if any of those reporters even try to change that, well - they'll learn soon enough that I'm done playing nice."  
  
"And Ben? Where does he stand in this?"  
"Isn't it obvious?"  
  
Uma's return, naturally, isn't very surprising in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps to the attendees still much in the dark over the last couple of hours, but not to an Isle native - who knows by heart that every villain carries an ace up their sleeve.  
Ben's love spell, however, is quite the plot twist - and the arm, draped nicely into the crook of Ben's elbow, stirs the same inner heat within Carlos as the mark that's still visible upon his neck, behind the ear.  
And it's unfair - 'cause Ben is breathtaking in his suit, looking delectable in a satin midnight blue - and though his 'date' is just as stunning, she isn't welcomed - nor is Carlos exactly willing to share now that the shadow has returned for good.  
  
"What do we do?"  
"The Enchanted Lake-"  
"Too far to be of any use-"  
"There must be another way. How does one usually break a spell?"  
  
Evie and Mal turn to regard each other in seconds - Carlos following suit, a beat after, with an unsure Jay - who simply stares between them.  
  
"True loves kiss."  
  
Carlos sighs.  
  
"Whose?"  
  
Mal doesn't try for it - instead, she rushes to the couples side and tackles Uma with a rightly earned fist against her face. And Evie, bless her heart, trails on her heels, nails bruised tightly into Carlos's own arm - who stammers to keep up in pace.  
  
And it's stupid. And terribly embarrassing for Carlos to try and forget the eyes watching the entire affair. Even more so, when hes forced to crane up and onto the tip of his toes to reach the King.  
  
And at first, the lips he meets are dead - slightly parted and chapped - so he second guesses, and begins to feel the error of a fool again. His mind, essentially wandering to the low ache against his arm - where Evie had handled him.  
But then - a slight pressure - pulling him back and against the lips that begin to close - softly, easily - rounding out into a settled firm shape against his own.  
  
"It works every time."  
  
He pulls back once the arms have come to lay against his shoulders - warm and, in lack of a better word, large - against his more feeble build.  
  
"Carlos-?"  
"Y-yeah?"  
  
Ben smiles - with an inkling of uncertainty - due to the odd situation at hand, and really - the crowd about them isn't helping much with the way they seem to audibly gasp at every turn.  
But still, its a rather sweet and genuine look. And much like the moment in the dorm room earlier that day - a sort of calm washes between them. Broken only by a small bubble of bliss that erupts from Ben's own mouth.  
  
"Good boy."  
  
The rest of the evening is relatively quaint after that - with Uma vanishing into the night after having been discouraged by Mal turning into a dragon. Which, yes - wasn't exactly expected, nor foreseen in the slightest - but really, what is nowadays?  
It simply is - was.  
It happened.  
  
And by morning, things go about as normally as they can.  
The press, still in the hordes with countless questions, stalk about the grounds like vermin - though Carlos dodges them easily enough, mostly yielding to his own personal routes of walking about the school. And Mal, still in her half state of a funk, presses forward through them, her head held high and eyes blazing green should anyone even think to come close with a microphone. As for the shadow \- well, it naturally begins to trail alongside Carlos - duty, for the moment, damned - and nowhere far enough to be perceived as behind him any longer.  
  
And really - the shadow, is much more than that now.  
For its been stitched and laced back together seamlessly - now no longer just there against the wall in certain lights - but present even if not seen.  
And it brightens - and smiles - and takes hold of his hand, miraculously not scaring him in the least. And when it teases - and kisses the bridge of his nose - with fingers still dancing about his head, Carlos flushes. Especially once those same hands take rest and begin to skim about the freckles painted across his torso and hips.  
  
Essentially, it becomes - finally - more man than shadow \- and more Ben than even that. So when they lay together, pressed neatly - arms free to explore - Carlos feels, and breathes - and guides his own hands into foreign territories not known nor easily seen before. He first marks where Hook had tainted behind the ear - and laps, mouth hot and obedient, against the stretch of canvas beneath and beyond that.  
  
"I think you may have a thing for spots, Carlos."  
  
It's strange to have thought of Ben as his shadow \- strange to think of any living - breathing - human - as something without and yet so terribly and unconditionally with, that it practically tortures the mind and soul.  
Though, he supposes - he, all along, had been Ben's too. At least - that's what Ben seems to incline with the way in which he continues to follow and lean into every touch Carlos offers. No matter how physical said touches tend to become.  
  
"Always."


End file.
